Joshua Landis is Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the Boren College of International Studies. He writes and manages SyriaComment.com, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics and publishes frequently in policy journals such as Foreign Affairs, Middle East Policy and Foreign Policy. His book, Syria at Independence: Nationalism, Leadership, and Failure of Republicanism, will be published by the Arab Center for research and Policy studies this coming year. He is a frequent analyst on TV, radio, and in print and is a regular on NPR and the BBC. He has received three Fulbright grants to support his research in Syria and won numerous prizes for his teaching. He is past President of the Syrian Studies Association. He has lived 15 years in the Middle East and 4 in Syria. He spent most summers in Syria before the uprising on 2011. He was educated at Swarthmore (B.A.), Harvard (M.A.), and Princeton (Ph.D). He is married to Manar Kashour and has two sons, Jonah Firas and Kendall Shaaban.
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Episode 466
Joshua Landis
The Iran War and the Limits of American Power | Joshua Landis
Joshua Landis is Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the Boren College of International Studies. He writes and manages SyriaComment.com, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics and publishes frequently in policy journals such as Foreign Affairs, Middle East Policy and Foreign Policy. His book, Syria at Independence: Nationalism, Leadership, and Failure of Republicanism, will be published by the Arab Center for research and Policy studies this coming year. He is a frequent analyst on TV, radio, and in print and is a regular on NPR and the BBC. He has received three Fulbright grants to support his research in Syria and won numerous prizes for his teaching. He is past President of the Syrian Studies Association. He has lived 15 years in the Middle East and 4 in Syria. He spent most summers in Syria before the uprising on 2011. He was educated at Swarthmore (B.A.), Harvard (M.A.), and Princeton (Ph.D). He is married to Manar Kashour and has two sons, Jonah Firas and Kendall Shaaban.
In Episode 466 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joshua Landis, professor of Middle East Studies and director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, about the Iran war, what it reveals about American strategy in the region, and why the absence of a clear theory of victory raises the specter of yet another catastrophic regime-change war in the Middle East.
Kofinas and Landis examine the competing narratives surrounding the conflict — from the argument that the Trump administration was dragged into war by Israel, to the theory that Washington concluded Iran would never voluntarily relinquish its nuclear program, to speculation that the campaign is part of a broader grand strategy aimed at neutralizing a Chinese forward base in the Middle East ahead of Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping.
They also discuss why Iran’s regime is far more institutionalized and resilient than the Arab governments the United States has previously sought to topple, the historical lessons of America’s last four regime-change wars — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya — and why the pattern of civil war, refugee crises, and strategic blowback that followed each of those interventions is likely to repeat itself in a country of over 90 million people.
The conversation closes with an examination of the broader regional realignment now underway, including the emerging Turkey-Saudi axis taking shape in response to Israeli dominance, the dangerous irony of simultaneously abandoning the Syrian Kurds while attempting to arm the Kurds of northern Iran, and the most plausible optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for how this conflict ultimately resolves.
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Joshua Landis is Sandra Mackey Chair and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the Boren College of International Studies.
He writes and manages SyriaComment.com, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics and publishes frequently in policy journals such as Foreign Affairs, Middle East Policy and Foreign Policy. His book, Syria at Independence: Nationalism, Leadership, and Failure of Republicanism, will be published by the Arab Center for research and Policy studies this coming year. He is a frequent analyst on TV, radio, and in print and is a regular on NPR and the BBC.
He has received three Fulbright grants to support his research in Syria and won numerous prizes for his teaching. He is past President of the Syrian Studies Association.
He has lived 15 years in the Middle East and 4 in Syria. He spent most summers in Syria before the uprising on 2011.
He was educated at Swarthmore (B.A.), Harvard (M.A.), and Princeton (Ph.D).
He is married to Manar Kashour and has two sons, Jonah Firas and Kendall Shaaban.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
